Still Watching Masters of the Air? This Apple TV’s Show Does Historical Drama Better

Summary:

• Apple TV continues to drop impressive historical shows, with the success of Masters of the Air being added by another newly-released solid drama.
• It focuses on the aftermath of the assassination of President Lincoln.
• The new series is gaining much acclaim due to its leading actors and brand new feature of the killer’s figure, filled with callbacks to our realities.

Given the lasting Apple TV’s chart domination of Masters of the Air, Austin Butler ’s spectacular war drama, it’s clear people are starving for the well-built historical series. The public interest can be satisfied by another platform’s show, based on real life events, not the war ones, but, nevertheless, bloody and truthful enough to сompete with.

Based on the historian James L. Swanson's novel, the series features the days after the event which became definitive to the whole U.S., the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. After that, his Secretary of War and close friend, Edwin Stanton, starts tracking down the killer, who turned out to be John Wilkes Booth, a semi-famous stage actor.

Beginning as a conspiracy thriller about Booth being a Confederate sympathizer and lamenting the then-recent abolition of slavery, the series follows him fleeing D.C. and Stanton’s 12-day chase after him. As the seven-episode story unfolds, it delves into the psychological investigation of the mind of the killer.

The show is highly praised now for the leading actors, who managed to convey the controversy of their characters and their great significance to post Сivil war America. While Stanton was here portrayed by the accomplished Tobias Menzies (The Crown, Outlander ), Lincoln’s murderer was depicted by Masters of the Air’s Anthony Boyle.

Besides, this historical drama is extremely remarkable for its accurate allusions to today’s political realities, hinting at how cyclical history is. The showrunner Monica Beletsky puts easter eggs for the most attentive viewers just like Stanton puts traps for Booth to eventually catch him and end the country’s growing haze of paranoia.

Titled Manhunt, after Swanson’s book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, this show delves deeper into the psychological aspects of the assassination, than such movies, as The Conspirator (2010) and Killing Lincoln (2013), which also explored it.

Five episodes of Manhunt have already premiered, while the final ones are scheduled to be aired on April 12 and 19. Stream this gripping series exclusively on AppleTV+.

Source: Apple TV